A Short and Merry Life
by WittyRejoinder
Summary: I didn't know when or where this second life of mine was going to end, but I was resolved that if it didn't end on my terms, it would have to be ripped from me shrieking and fighting, because I'd been reborn into freedom and adventure and I would never let it go. My first life had ended with a literal bang. I would be damned if I let this one end in a whimper.


_Breathe_

Blood bubbled in my mouth like it too was in disbelief. It dribbled down my chin as if to lead the stunned gazes of the two men next to me down to my mutilated arm. It dribbled down my chin and fell in large spattering drops of slimy, thick liquid on the ground.

"N-Neve?" Luffy asked in an uncharacteristically small voice.

"It's alright, Luffy."

It wasn't alright. I wasn't alright. In fact, I can say with absolute certainty that right then, I was dying. The irony of it all hit me and I laughed, hacking up a mouthful of blood along with my gurgled, numbered chuckles.

"I guess my luck's just run out."

My arm was useless. My shoulder was useless. Ace was frozen, the pupils of his eyes dilated to pinpricks-so small and so _black_, they somehow stood out against the darkness of his irises. He was so _still-_watching me as if…I don't know.

Neither he nor Luffy could look away from the grotesque, mangled _mess_ that was my shoulder. It didn't hurt anymore. It hadn't hurt since that first strangled, keening cry had been ripped from my throat, and I'd been around too long not to know what that meant.

"Guys, I don't think…I have that much time left."

I wasn't kidding. I wasn't exaggerating. I could feel with every rattling breath I took the blood that must have been welling in my right lung; I knew that the blow I had taken had shattered my shoulder, my collar bone, my ribs. I knew that my arm was broken from the elbow up and I would have been more upset if I hadn't known that it wouldn't matter soon.

Half of my skin was burnt as hell, the other half having been saved by the armament haki that was now long since dissipated. My bones had been splintered by the blow; my right lung was a pin cushion for those shattered fragments. In some distant part of my mind, I decided that the only reason I hadn't bled out was because my wounds had been cauterized by the heat of the magma even as jagged bits of my own bone tore me open from the inside.

"W-what are you talking about, Neve? We'll get you to Chopper, and he'll fix you right up!"

There was no real hope in Luffy's voice as he admonished my honesty, just an empty, numb sort of adopted cheerfulness. The corner of my mouth turned up in a half-smile, and Luffy opened his mouth to say something, but Ace stopped him.

"Luffy."

I watched as Ace slowly lowered his gaze to my blood on the ground, glistening, red as anything, and saw his hands curl ever so slowly into clenched fists.

"Stop," he said, swallowing with difficulty, "Let her talk."

Luffy looked at him like he just couldn't understand what he was saying.

"But Ace, we have to get her to Chopper! If we don't she could-"

"Luffy."

Ace's voice brooked no argument, and Luffy's face visibly fell. He was trembling, I realized then, shaking with bubbling panic, his body reacting to what his mind would not accept. The hand he had raised in emphasis of the urgency of the situation fell.

"A-Ace. It's _Neve-_She can't…"

I very well could. Die, that is. That was the word he couldn't bring himself to say, after all. It would have taken nothing short of a bloody miracle to save me at that point. I was kneeling unsteadily in a puddle of my own blood. I was only still upright because of the way I was slumped over, clutching at my right arm just beneath the elbow as if to make sure it was still attached. My vision started going dark. I don't have time for this shit, I wanted to shout. I don't have time for Luffy's painfully desperate denial, or Ace's weight-of-the-world guilt.

"Do you remember…that day on the beach? The three of us were there, and you, Luffy…you asked me if I had a dream."

Luffy's eyes snapped to mine when I started talking, wide and approaching hysterical. Ace looked up too, met my eyes and promised me without words that whatever I said now, he would remember forever. He knew what I was doing. I was saying goodbye.

"I told the two of you that…if you really wanted to know…"

Something in Luffy's eyes changed and I knew he understood.

"Let's meet again in ten years, I said, right here on this beach. I'll tell you then," I continued, as if the look of devastation on his face wasn't there. "I'm sorry, but I think…I'm going to have to break the promise we made."

Things were starting to look a little fuzzy.

"My dream was…to stand on that beach with the two of you…"

Darkness began to creep every so patiently, so slowly, into the edge of my vision.

"To see both of you there and be able to say…'_I did it. I protected my nakama. I protected my precious friends…and lived a life without regret.'_ That's what I wanted to say to you. I…"

I was suddenly staring up at Ace's dark face, my head nestled in his lap as I wondered when I had fallen. Luffy was sniffling somewhere in front of me, a vague shape of bright, happy red against a bleak background.

"Luffy…_I believe in you. _Ace believes in you, too. He was…he was ready to die so that you could live to achieve your dreams. So…don't disappoint us!"

The image of Ace with a molten fist clean through his chest flashed through my mind. Yes, he had been ready to die…I interfered. I interfered because Ace deserved to live. He was my friend and I loved him, and he had a promise to keep. I interfered because I loved Luffy and Luffy deserved to be spared the pain of losing his big brother. I interfered because I could use armament haki, because I knew to take the blow from side, because I was the only one that could get there in time and stand half a chance of living.

"Ace…you've always doubted yourself and your existence. You…you are so, _so_ loved, Ace. If something happened to you…think of what it would do to everyone. Think of Luffy."

I didn't wait for an affirmative because his face had twisted into an expression of naked grief and his arms were trembling on either side of me. I smiled.

"We had a lot of fun together," I said, closing my eyes. "Thank you."

Luffy snapped.

"_No_," he all but snarled. "_No!_"

"Luffy," Ace tried to say, but he was choking up somewhere over my head. The darkness was growing, rendering him a blurry mass I could barely make out against the smoke-colored sky.

"_NO,"_ Luffy cried out, less furiously and more desperately than he had before. "You haven't lived your dream, Neve! You have to live. You _have_ to. You made a _promise_! You-You can't!"

I chuckled.

"I…protected my nakama, Luffy. I have…no regrets."

Darker and darker still. Everything seemed so far away, and it felt like I was breathing easier. Maybe I was breathing less.

"Remember that…funny little saying…I have…? A…"

Blackness. I couldn't so much as twitch a finger.

"A…short…"

My mouth didn't want to cooperate.

"A short…and…"

I opened my mouth again but no sound came out. I could hear Luffy screaming my name, sniffling, sobbing, and Ace too, breaking down in the background. It was getting quiet.

I smiled.

"_Neve?"_

They say your hearing is the last to go.


End file.
